In today’s Gospel reading, we hear the parable of the Sower. Some seed fell on the path, where birds ate it. Some fell on rocky ground, where the shallow soil made it spring up quickly; but because it had no roots, it withered under the sun. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked it. Only the seed that fell on good soil produced an abundant harvest.
If we consider this story in human terms, what might it mean? It suggests that the beginning of life, and our earliest years, are crucial in shaping whether we flourish and help others to flourish too. When we are well cared for and our needs are met, we are like seed in good soil, given the chance to grow and thrive. This reflects the welcome Jesus gives to children.
A good beginning helps us become rooted and grounded. Children who are moved from pillar to post by adults have fewer chances to put down roots. Without the firm foundation of a stable environment, they are less able to cope when difficulties arise. Stability is the good soil that fosters growth and confidence in life.
Children who experience trauma may find it harder to hear and listen. Their minds are focused on survival rather than on the world around them. This is not beneficial because in today’s Gospel, it is written that hearing and listening are central to the Christian journey. Jesus teaches that those who hear the word of the kingdom and understand it are protected from the evil one, who would snatch it away. But if we are not rooted and grounded, we may receive the word with joy for a time and then fall away when trouble comes. Jesus also speaks of those whose lives are so crowded by worldly cares and the lure of wealth that the word is choked and bears no fruit.
Hearing and listening are therefore vital to our Christian journey: hearing and listening to the word of the Kingdom. Those who cannot hear physically can still receive the word through sign language, understand it, and respond in faith. Meditation and silent reflection also have an important place in our relationship with God.
This hearing and listening are given to us by Jesus as a choice that we make. What may prevent us from making that choice is revealed in the Old Testament in the Book of Isaiah. Here the prophet is saying that people do not listen because their hearts have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes. So, they cannot be open to the healing power of God.
Perhaps in today’s world our hearts have been dulled by centuries of wars and crises, seemingly unsolvable problems and despair that we cannot prosper in a world afflicted by climate change, natural disasters and faltering economic systems. How then, can our hearts be refreshed and illuminated?
One way is to be reminded of texts in the Bible that offer us hope for the future. Isaiah writes that the word of God will accomplish its purpose and we will ‘go out in joy and be led back in peace; the mountains and trees will burst into song and the trees in the fields shall clap their hands’. The cypress will come up instead of the thorn and instead of the brier there will be the myrtle. These are the signs of the everlasting covenant of God with us. God’s word will never return empty but will water the earth and give seed to the Sower and bread to the eater. This, the prophet Isaiah says, is what we must listen to.
In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes that they must not lose heart because ‘even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day’. In his letter to the Romans, Paul tells them that creation will be set free from bondage to decay. We will groan until redemption, but redemption is the end of our journey so we must keep going until then. Echoing Paul’s letter to the Romans, a way to keep going is, as David Pawson writes in his Commentary on Matthew, ‘to put to death whatever in your old life is spoiling the new’.
In his book entitled ‘Listen and Live’ Colin Urquhart writes that we must ‘plant our seed of prayer with faith, water it with praise and thank God until you see the harvest’.
Both Old and New Testament writers, then, are offering us hope by encouraging us to renew ourselves and to hear and listen to the word of the Kingdom, which was made flesh in Jesus who, as John’s Gospel gives it to us, is the ear of wheat that died for us and produced many seeds. This hearing and listening will help us to keep going in troubled times and remind us of the light at the end of the tunnel which is the one true light of God.
AMEN